OCD Love Story (35 page)

THERE IS NO EIGHTH DATE
. we just skipped it. Dr. Pat says you make your own decisions.

MANY, MANY DATES LATER, LISH
, beck, and i hang out in Harvard Square. There's a place called The Pit, and it's stoners and skaters and the three of us. We're people watching.

I'm taking notes, but it's okay because it's for a play I'm going to be costume designing at school. It's not a huge deal, just this student-run evening of short plays that other students wrote, but I offered to do the costumes and everyone was psyched, like it was obvious that I'd be great at that. Which I guess means I've been totally successful at having my outfits stand out from the sea of J.Crew sweaters and tight black pants that make up the rest of the student population at Greenough Girl's Academy.

One of the plays is about punked-out runaway kids, and I figured this was the place to find them. Jeff used to talk about coming here on the weekends, scoring Ritalin, and learning how to skate.

The memory of that doesn't scare me so much anymore.

But I told Dr. Pat I missed my compulsions. That sometimes I missed them because without them I was more anxious, but sometimes I missed them because they defined me. She recommended people watching. The winter is finally turning full-on into spring, and Beck, Lisha, and I can lean back and take in the crowds. It doesn't have the same euphoric, druglike magic of checking on Austin and Sylvia, but it's fun, catching snippets of conversation. I don't write them down (Dr. Pat's rules—I'm only allowed to write down costume ideas) but I share a smile and half laugh with Beck or Lish whenever we overhear a particularly good little moment between strangers.

“I'm thinking of getting back into shoplifting. Am I too old?” a brunette, superpierced chick says to her sad-eyed friend.

“. . . should I go out with him even though he's ugly?”

“. . . wish I just had one more purse, then I'd be in good shape.”

“I'm thinking of moving to Sweden. I've heard good things. Healthcare and blondes and shit.”

“You're a real dick most of the time.”

“You're one beautiful bitch.”

“I love you the most.”

Lisha keeps smiling at the Harvard students that walk by since she's about to be one of them. She crosses and uncrosses her legs in an attempt to fit in and look like them. It's not
warm between us, exactly, and we're not back to normal, and there isn't some perfect moment in the sun that fixes what's hurt between us. She sits a foot or two to our left and doesn't ever really talk straight to Beck, and she cringes when anything comes up that she thinks will trigger us: the number eight, soap, a sharp object, a guy in workout clothes on his way to the gym, a woman with fake breasts and gorgeous hair and dark eye makeup who could be Sylvia.

“Is that . . . ,” Lish says, and I shake my head no, but then take a closer look and it
is
. It's Sylvia, and Austin beside her, and their hands are knit together and their pace is perfectly in sync, long limbs stepping in time to some song we can't hear. They share one pair of headphones between them and keep their heads close to listen to the music. Probably their own album. I want to point this out to Lish and Beck, who have both latched on to their presence, but then I remember they were never up in that apartment with me, and they wouldn't understand.

In some ways, Sylvia and Austin are still the people I know best in the world.

I miss them.

“You okay?” Beck says. There's a hint of green, green jealousy in his voice and in the space behind his eyes, but he's working hard to keep it in, to accept that handsome, string-bean, rocker-chic bit of my past. He's trying. I can tell because his clothes are a little looser on him than they were before. Not normal yet, but not straining against every muscle, not
breaking at the seams. He had a whole series of button-down shirts with pulled-out threads along the sides, long slits where the fabric could no longer contain him.

He looks better now.

I keep my eye on the figures of Sylvia and Austin as they go into a café. I wait just enough time to not cause suspicion.

“You guys want coffee? I'm gonna go get a tea,” I say, getting up, stretching my legs, pinning my sunglasses to my face.

“Black coffee,” Lisha says.

“Latte,” Beck says, and beams at me. He's working at breaking some of his rules, so green tea or bottled water is out. He's trying to enjoy the occasional vice. “With sugar,” he continues, just showing off now.

I counter by dropping my notebook on his lap so he can see that every single line of scribble in there is about clothing ideas for the show. Sometimes progress becomes a minicompetition between us. One where everyone wins, I guess.

God, I sound like Dr. Pat when I get this way.

I make it all the way to the door of the café. Just a push of the door and I'll be in there, in line behind Austin and Sylvia. And I want it, maybe more than I've ever wanted anything. Maybe more than I want Beck and his deeply scarred but recovering hands on my body, or his eyes on mine.

There are huge windows and I don't hide, I just stand squarely facing them for long enough to breathe through and let go of the impulse.

I do not pinch my thigh, which is a strange brown-yellow in its latest stage of unbruising itself.

Austin's eyes find me there, outside looking in, like some puppy trying to beg through the storefront glass, practically panting. His hand goes to Sylvia's back and I think he's about to point me out but he doesn't. He just lets his hand stay there and he has the saddest eyes and a new tattoo on the back of that hand. I can tell because it looks raw and unfinished next to the expert patterns on his forearms.

They're so close, just behind the glass, that I can see every bit of him without straining. Every detail.

Or maybe it sticks out because it's a symbol I recognize: a small shooting star. This one is black, but the one it reminds me of was gold, embossed on the surface of a pink notebook I used to have.

A pink notebook I burned.

There's a squeeze in my heart with the realization that I may never know exactly what it means that he's tattooed himself with something that was on my notebook.

It could even be, I suppose, coincidence.

Dr. Pat says the human mind is a complicated place. That we hold on to things, images, words, ideas, histories that we don't even know we're holding on to.

Sometimes lines of poetry from that book Kurt gave me still flit through my head. It doesn't mean I'm going to call him and check to make sure he's still breathing. And even
right now, I want to touch Austin's new tattoo, the one I think he got in my honor. I want to know how they're doing. The need hasn't vanished entirely, but it's become this thing I can dip into for a moment, and then dry off from.

Quick and dirty, that's what Beck calls it when we slide into a compulsion for one glorious moment and then save ourselves from the full immersion. I smile at the thought of it, because I like the turn of phrase. Austin smiles back. Guess he thinks I'm smiling his way, saying hello, but really, I'm not.

I don't go in. I don't have to.

A huge, over-the-top thank-you to my amazing agent, Victoria Marini, whose support made me believe and whose insight helped me make it true.

I'm so lucky to have the honor of working with my fabulous editor, Anica Rissi, who gets me, challenges me, and inspires me.

Thank you to Monday Group and Thesis Group for reading, shaping, encouraging, and giving me deadlines: Dhonielle Clayton, Sona Chairapotra, Alyson Gerber, Caela Carter, and Amy Ewing.

I've been blessed with some unbelievable teachers in my life, and I'd like to thank all of them, but most especially Sandra MacQuinn, Dan Halperin, Hettie Jones, David Levithan, and Patricia McCormick. And an especially large thank-you to a truly amazing teacher and role model, Victoria Hart, who probably doesn't realize what a huge difference she made.

Thank you to Red Horse Café and Tea Lounge for making me mochas, playing good music, giving me distractions, and providing a cozy place to write.

So many people gave time and thought to this book and my particular journey to publication. A special thanks to Navdeep Dhillon, Michael Strother, Liesa Abrams and
the rest of the Simon Pulse team, Kalah McCaffrey, Laura Schechter, and Danielle Chiotti.

I'm so grateful for my tiny, book-loving family: the Haydus: Dad, Mom, Andy, Jenn, Ellie, Gary, Marie, and Tina; the Spokeses: Dick, Carol, Suzie, and Jen; the Rosses: Judy (who is probably hand-selling this book right now), Doug, Cam, and Ian. And of course the grandparents.

And all my love and thanks to the ones who let me talk, cry, complain, exclaim, obsess, and celebrate:

The ten years or more club: Julia Furlan, Kea Gilbert, Mandy Adams, Honora Javier, and Tracey Roiff. I'm very lucky you've all put up with me and my crazy-writer ways for this long.

And the lovely rest who support me in so many unique ways: Anna Bridgforth, Pallavi Yetur, Leigh Poulos, Mark Souza, Michael Mraz, Brian Smallwood, Rachel Gordon Smallwood, Alisha Spielman, Meghan Formwalt Shann, Taylor Shann, Lizzie Moran, Katherine Jaeger-Thomas, Janet Zarecor, Jess Verdi, Lenea Grace, and Frank Scallon.

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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First Simon Pulse hardcover edition July 2013

Copyright © 2013 by Corey Ann Haydu

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